The silence stops it
from burning out, from you
snuffing out the dream,
the pile-up of scenes
isn’t a newsflash catastrophe
but a merry-go-round
of luminous make-believes,
could-soon-be-reals.
     It all depends on what you fancy, really,
     whether it’s my form, my dyshidrotic fingers
     knitted with yours on the maiden date
     (I’m free whenever)
     or if the typecast appeals more,
     Mr. Fifty Abs with his thousand followers
     chiselled for reality TV
     in a way we’ve seen before, creosote tan
     and judging others in the gym; even his speech
     could be made from sweat.
If this is how it will stay,
so be it. The seasons will squash
the unreal, allow us both to swim
in the ignorance we already bask in,
my mouth bereft of sound
when you approach, my name
never the bead of sugar
on your tongue.

You know the morning comes
with the ridged mirror thumbprint
post-shower, a buffoon on the news
with his breakfast’s semi-skimmed
still lingering on his lip.          Oh! There’s a wedding dress,
white mascarpone tones put the nation
in a hellish spin… They’re miming
about this online, believe it,
their history teachers know it
and they shoot their cars up with paracetamol;
doctors say it’s the best way
to keep the numbers
down to single digits.

Girl boy something other, you’d better
check those socials because
a no-faced stranger may incorrectly spell
mascarpone, how ***!! stop it you look,
not the waxy sheen of your blemished
history, and the rain, those scrawny
black instruments are done for,
we shimmy in semi-skimmed now
because the movies said so
and you must believe every word,
each glitzy syllable is like
a paracetamol shot,
you’re missing out, you’ll forget
so I’ll say it again, not really
‘cause you’re reading, you’re missing

breakfast’s ready.

Ache of an absence,
half gone
and seeing phantoms
in the place you used
to be,

a vacant hook
where a sunny cagoule
would slouch,
handwritten supermarket
reminders

slapped against the fridge.
What it’s like to lose
a limb, dim pulse,
futile scramble
for meaning in the missing,

and the morning’s severed
yolk bathes little but
the wicked iced side
of the bed where a spirit
disrupts your space.

Where The Sea Sprays

two-tone sand                  
mercury murmurs                  
out as far                                  
as the world
flips over
throb of a downpour
in the ripple
of a watercolour
mist-swabs
that prickle a cheek
chill nicks the lips
miniature blades
incisor eruptions
basalt cacophony
could be a chalk-like welt
with a thousand tiers
leave one foot
another mark
ephemeral label
on a foreign land

----------

four walls
spider’s thin sentence
the scene’s fracture
tree that used
to breathe
a wonky spine
hours-old blobs
corner huddle
on the other side
of a fire bullet
melting cherries
rainbow hoop
detains a web
of mouldy dreams
bar one pentagon
where foam
dazzles milk white
over jet black rug
where the trail
continues ad infinitum

Ad Infinitum

very easy to soak in blue
as though a blanket made of shades,
the horrid, musty
smell of your own inertia,
the well that lengthens
inside, perhaps your ribcage
extending, cracking each time
you know you are breathing,
arrhythmic ticks in blue, blue,

but yellow, shapes seep
through your semi-conscious gauze,
name of the day, its contents page
slaps the window like rain-pellets
and the dust
                     trickles into
                                        a trench
                     of forgotten
history, and you can see lilies,
yellow glyphs, the way they ****
their heads  in the breeze; it is a greeting.

if no answers, the sea calls.
watch how it rushes in to greet,
its translucent syntax spilling
over the toes, splashing the ankles,
leaving its transitory glisten for you.

a tepid breeze between fingers,
count each intake of breath,
every time the waves respire
and become reborn, and you sigh
along with them, coastal air

loading your lungs, the blood orange
sun on its indolent slide
to the horizon’s other side,
your language of logograms
the response, to keep going.

what has become of this,
maybe to arrange the words before me
attach them as if a jigsaw with
no picture or meaning,
no analysis necessary
for before you know it,
they dry, start to crumble
as if made with the cheapest materials,
not to be seen again
by any pair of tired eyes,
minds wasted on what could’ve been.